It is known that various types of pasta filata cheese are presently produced in form of a cord or strand from which single portions are severed.
In order to obtain such cord, the cheese paste from out of the molding machine is fed into a hopper.
The cord delivered from the hopper is subjected to a manual tug that provides a stretching of the strand.
Obviously, a manual process brings various hygiene and productivity inconveniences.
In order to overcome such disadvantages many apparatuses are known for stretching of the cheese cord by means of rolls (see JP-57-206334).
The document U.S. Pat. No. 4,288,465 discloses a method and an apparatus suitable for shaping pasta filata cheese comprising the steps of extruding pasta filata cheese through extruding means in order to obtain a strand of cheese which is brought to a pair of adjacent, rotating drums around which the cheese strand is wrapped. The drums are operated at a speed higher than the extrusion speed to cause the strand to stretch.
The strand then passes through a cooling vat under tension and, after pulling and cooling, it is cut to length suitable for packaging.
The above apparatus provides no effective means suitable for controlling automatically the tension applied to the stretched strand, except that the speed of the drums could be controlled by the adjustable power supply of the motor of the same drums.
The mentioned apparatuses have not solved effectively the problems connected with shaping pasta filata cheese into form of cord.